Something to think about (weak ace in the blinds)

[Nate tha' Great]

You are playing in a game that features a mix of loose opponents. The player UTG is loose and quite aggressive (though not a total maniac) but the rest of the opponents are loose and passive. Also, the table has noticed UTG's loose aggressiveness and has chosen to react to it by cold calling a lot with hands that they would normally limp with.

Anyway, you're sitting in the BB in this hand with A /images/graemlins/club.gif 8 /images/graemlins/spade.gif. UTG open-raises, as you estimate that he'll do probably 20 percent of the time in this position. You have not seen him open-limp from any position.

Suppose furthermore that you aren't allowed to fold this hand. Why? I dunno. You probably should fold. Imagine that you're aware of a sidebet between the floor manager and one of his cronies concerning your propensity to fold out of the blinds and you have a piece of the action. Imagine whatever you want. You aren't allowed to fold.

Given these conditions, what is the optimal number of cold callers between UTG and yourself in order to maximize your EV in the hand?

[fnord_too]

Well, I'd like to look at some numbers I have crunched at home, but my initial reaction is all or none. HU against a lag, I think A8o is ok getting 3.5 to one on the call pre flop. I cannot see how getting 19-1 on this call can be anthing but +EV if the whole table cold calls.

I think that having everyone cold call in front of you is the most positive EV situation.

[Copernicus]

I vote for none. Against random hands 50% of the time your best hand is A high and another 42% of the time its one pair. With everyone in before you youre going to get pot bound on any drawing flop and go for a big number looking for a miracle.

Early cold callers, even in a loose passive game, are also probably not going in with total garbage, so the chances of at least one of your A's being out against you are worse than random as well.

Your best value here is to get heads up IMO

[DeeJ]

I think another way to look at this is to think about how your decision outlook changes as your kicker gets a smudge better (eg A9o or ATo).

It's perfectly possible and not totally incorrect for players to be cold calling with A2s-A7s which are probably as likely as A9o-AKo to be cold calling, although obviously they (suited aces) occur far less frequently. I would think most of your bad-Asce hands are raising (AJ,AQ,AK) leaving just A9,AT. So if your table is fairly loose but not terrible (as in another example of this situation I am aware of ;P ) you could be missing an opportunity to suck a few bets out of a missed flush but hit-top-pair-with-weak-kicker player who check-calls all the way.

Maybe ? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Oh, to answer your question, therefore it depends. /images/graemlins/grin.gif